A thin layer of technology

When you think about it, in the grand sweep of human existence, our technological world is a fairly new development. I’m pretty much measuring from the start of the industrial age. We’ve had technological advancement before then. When you think about it, stone axes, bows and arrows, and fire making were huge steps in our development. In the early days technological improvement happened at a glacial pace.

Personally, I think the bronze age was a high point. We had metal working, organized cities, writing, complex social structures, city planning, International trade, treaties and so on. Significant areas of the world were civilized.

Technology really got going in the industrial age. Once fossil fuels were harnessed, the scale of everything changed. Humanity was no longer limited by the power of a growing season’s sunshine. Coal, oil and gas are basically a store for thousand’s of years worth of sunlight. We’ve had a huge explosion of technological advancement in the last two hundred years. On the scale of human existence, that’s a short time.

We really aren’t all that different physically from our stone age ancestors. Humanity has a heck of a lot more experience at being hunter gatherers than anything else. Mentally, we are struggling with this whole civilization and technology thing. Don’t believe me? Study after study shows how our mental condition is improved with just 20 minutes of exposure to the natural world a day. Humanity needs nature to thrive.

So while we’ve had civilization for something like 10,000 years, that’s hasn’t been long enough to totally transform us. At our core we need to walk among the trees, stroll along the beach and run barefoot in the grass.

That and maybe we need to kill something with a spear. That’s not too far down under our thin technological veneer.

-Sixbears

Weather windows

Life in the big city and life in the country take two different views of weather.

The city tries to ignore it, keeping it at bay with a climate controlled hive. The business of the city is independent from the cycles of weather. Worker bees are plugged into their cubicles, toiling away from the sun, wind or rain.

In the country the weather may be what determines your day. Is it too wet to plant the garden? Better clean the chimney before it snows. Make hay while the sun shines, and all that stuff.

Most lives in the industrial world are on city time -schedules, shifts, and deadlines. Sure, there are days off, but for most people, the free days are scheduled. On those few days off, you are permitted to be on rural time.

Problems arise when people try to fit outdoor activities into the time slots allotted by a life otherwise controlled by industrial time. Almost every year, people die hiking in the mountains. Weather is a major factor. People hike when they shouldn’t, but that’s the time they had to go.

Some years back I planned a winter overnight hike with some friends and a couple of my kids. Our destination was on of the mountains straddling the Maine/New Hampshire border. I had a rotating work schedule, the kids had their own schedules, and my friends worked jobs of their own. As the day approached, weather predictions for the weekend looked bad -temperatures 30 degrees below zero, and windy besides. We rescheduled, in spite of the logistical nightmare of getting everyone’s schedules to line up once more.

Other people should have rescheduled that weekend. Two people froze to death while hiking on a mountain less than 15 miles from where we’d planned on camping.

The following weekend, temperatures were much more moderate and we went and had a good time.

When I started sailing, I read that a schedule was a dangerous thing. I’ve discovered it to be true, and I didn’t even have to learn the hard way. Some days I’d look at the predicted weather, the waters in which I wished to sail, the size of my boat, and decide I didn’t have to sail that day. In fact, I’ve even turned the boat around when wind and waves proved to be quite different than predicted. Living an outdoors life, one learns to respect the weather.

As for those people in the concrete cocoons? They are only isolated from the weather as long as the works of man function properly. Should the power fail, which is happening more often, the outside world soon intrudes. They soon discover man’s triumph, the ability to ignore the outside environment, is a local and temporary condition.

Plan accordingly.

-Sixbears

Next winter's plans

My lovely wife and I have already been talking about what we are going to do next winter. Will we be able to travel next winter? It all depends on what the world's going to be like by then. There are lots of wild cards out there.

Michael Ruppert expects the collapse of industrial civilization within 6 months. Now I respect Mike. He's put it on the line. His predictions have often come true, but who knows what will really happen?

As far as he's concerned, the Japan disasters have broken the camel's back. He's not the only one. George Ure at Urban Survival sees where Japan's problems have impacted the just in time production model. There are industrial plants all over the world suspending operations due to problems with parts availability.

My guess, is that if everything else stayed stable, the shortages could be worked around. Other countries could ramp up production. Parts substitutions could take place. Production could be re-engineered to use more available components. Japan itself could bounce back. They have a lot of problems right now, but they are a resourceful, intelligent, and organized people.

All things aren't staying stable. We hear about revolutions in the Islamic world. Oil supply concerns are pushing prices higher all the time -some say high enough to kill any sort of economic recovery. We shall see.

Looks like food is going to be in short supply in a goodly part of the world. That can't but help fuel unrest. There's the old saying that no country is more than 3 meals from revolution. It's a fair bet that at the very least, we'll be paying a lot more for a lot less food. Just look at the shrinking food packaging and it's plain that's already happening.

In the middle of this all, my lovely wife and I cruise around Florida and dream of renting a little place right on a canal. There are some amazing deals out there. Of course, cruising the neighborhoods, seeing a good 1/3 of the houses empty is quite the experience. Even some occupied property show the results of sever income contraction: peeling paint, dead cars in the back yard, boats for sale, and lawn care ignored. Right next to them, however, may be an immaculate mini mansion with a quarter million dollar sailboat in the canal out back. Something tells me things have a ways to go before they shake themselves out. Who knows how the pieces will land? At the very least, I personally wouldn't buy anything down here. A buddy of mine bought a place for 57% of list, and admits he probably paid too much. He doesn't mind, as he can afford it and is taking the long view.

So . . . what do we about next winter? We keep our options open. I'll make sure that we could spend the winter home if need be. The wood pile gets rebuilt and insulation and weather caulking gets an upgrade. At the same time, we check out our travel options. Maybe we'll do a mix of camping, staying with friends and relatives, and sailing like this year -perhaps altering the mix. We might do something we've never done before, because that's what we do anyway. We don't need a hard and fast plan -we need options.

-Sixbears